Sam Shi’s Sonic Rebirth: Vulnerability, Evolution, and the Art of Showing Up

Sam Shi doesn’t create music from the surface; she creates it from the fault lines. The LA-based alternative electronic artist, producer, and multi-instrumentalist has spent the last year rebuilding her artistic identity from the inside out, emerging with a sound that feels like a collision of shadow and illumination. Equal parts raw and ethereal, Sam’s music lives in the liminal spaces: the moments between clarity and chaos, destruction and rebirth, truth and the versions of ourselves we outgrow.

Born into a culturally fluid upbringing, Swedish, Indonesian-Chinese, London, Sweden, Kuwait, Shanghai, New York, Sam is an artist shaped by landscapes, displacement, and the never-ending search for “home.” That restless, nomadic imprint shows up in every layer of her sound: the haunted vocal textures, the visceral electronic worlds, the rock-leaning grit beneath the surface. Her work gravitates toward people who live in transition, who are reinventing themselves, who exist on the edge of courage.

2025 was a transformative year, not because she perfected something, but because she stopped trying to. Her chosen Best Of release, Perfectionism, marks the moment Sam finally confronted the internal force that had been driving her life: the relentless pressure to be better, achieve more, shrink less, and prove her worth to an invisible audience she never actually named. The song isn’t a critique, it’s an exhale. A detangling. A release. A reclaiming of her humanity.

What makes Perfectionism powerful isn’t just the sound; it’s the truth behind it. Sam wrote it while confronting exhaustion, emotional numbness, and the realization that polishing yourself into something acceptable is a form of self-erasure. The track captures the quiet violence of perfectionism, the way it silences intuition, disconnects you from your own voice, and buries the parts of you that are most alive. But the song also cracks open light. It reminds listeners that they are allowed to be in progress, unfinished, messy, evolving. The world doesn’t need perfection; it needs honesty.

Beyond the studio, Sam’s year was defined by evolution. She premiered a 30-minute Joshua Tree Live Set, grew her YouTube from 360 to over 17,000 subscribers, joined the Recording Academy, launched the SURRENDER CIRCLE community, and built a new touring band. She navigated a difficult breakup, confronted emotional patterns, rediscovered self-worth, and refused to abandon herself ever again.

Heading into 2026, Sam is stepping into a new era with intention: yoga teacher training, vocal-movement fusion, workshops, deeper community-building, and her forthcoming sequel album WILD WOMAN, an exploration of instinct, truth, embodiment, and unapologetic femininity.

Her advice to artists is the same philosophy that grounds her own rebirth: stop waiting to feel ready. Clarity comes from doing. Truth comes from risking something. And evolution comes from allowing yourself to be seen, not perfect, but real.

Perfectionism is the release you chose for BUZZMUSIC’s Best of 2025, and you’ve described it as the most honest song you’ve ever written. What moment or realization triggered the start of that song, and what did writing it force you to confront about yourself?

I was sitting on the floor of my living room — tired, confused, and asking myself a question I had avoided for years: Why am I always chasing something? Why can’t I just be still? It hit me that I had spent most of my life running from discomfort, from stillness, from the truth. Not in a dramatic way, but in a subtle, constant state of escapism.

I’ve always believed I was self-aware. But writing this song pulled back the curtain and showed me how good I am at lying to myself when the truth feels too heavy. I never wanted to ask why I was always performing or who I was trying to impress, because it meant looking back at childhood patterns. I had a beautiful childhood, but I also learned to adapt, to fit in, to stay in motion. Moving around the world taught me how to blend in—but not how to slow down and ask myself: What do you want? How do you feel? Whose voice are you listening to?

Writing “Perfectionism” forced me to confront the reality of my internal state.For the first time, I had to face the questions I’d avoided: What’s wrong? Why are you numb? Why aren’t you giving yourself permission to live the way you want?

The song wasn’t just a release — it was a reckoning.

Your upbringing across multiple countries and cultures has shaped your identity and your sound. How did that sense of belonging everywhere and nowhere influence the emotional themes behind Perfectionism?

Growing up across so many countries made me adaptable, open-minded, and curious — but it also made me hyper-attuned to my surroundings. I learned how to read a room quickly, how to shape-shift, and how to fit in. When you’re constantly starting over, you become very good at adjusting yourself to what you think people want. That chameleon effect became the foundation of my perfectionism.

“Perfectionism” came from that emotional landscape — the internal pressure to be likable, impressive, put-together, and unshakeable in every environment. When you belong everywhere and nowhere, you chase identity instead of inhabit it. You chase validation instead of truth. You chase achievement instead of presence. 

This song was me stepping out of that pattern and finally asking: If no one was watching, who would you be? That question is still changing me.

You’ve said the song exposes the “quiet violence” of perfectionism. What does that violence look like in your everyday life, and how did you reclaim your voice from it creatively?

The violence of perfectionism is subtle. It doesn’t scream — it whispers. It tells you you’re not ready. It tells you you’re not enough. It tells you to shrink, to wait, to polish, to prove.

For me, it looked like:

• Overthinking every decision

• Making myself small to avoid judgment and being too much

• Constantly moving so I wouldn’t have to feel too deeply 

• Working endlessly and still feeling behind

• Editing my emotions before anyone else could see or feel the real depth of them

• Feeling numb even when life looked “good”
  

It’s a war no one else sees.

Creatively, reclaiming my voice meant choosing honesty over aesthetics. Letting things be raw. Letting lyrics be imperfect. Letting my vocal take hold of emotion instead of flawlessness. Showing the cracks instead of covering them. 

“Perfectionism” was the moment I stopped performing and started telling the truth.

In 2025, you rebuilt your artistic identity, launched a new live band, produced a cinematic Joshua Tree performance, and joined the Recording Academy. How did these milestones shape your confidence as both an artist and a woman evolving out of a difficult chapter?

Each milestone was a reminder that I’m not pretending or chasing or squeezing myself into the industry — I belong here. Rebuilding my artistic identity, forming a new band, releasing the Joshua Tree film, joining the Recording Academy… all of it affirmed that being fully myself is not only allowed, it’s respected. These wins helped me trust that I am not “aiming to be” an artist. I am one. And I don’t need to contort myself to earn that place.

The SURRENDER CIRCLE and your retreats merge movement, community, and creativity. How does physical embodiment, yoga, breath, and presence influence the emotional honesty in your songwriting?

In 2023, when I began experiencing chronic illness, my body was speaking long before my mind was willing to listen. I tried everything — moving apartments, medication, supplements, dietary resets. Some things helped temporarily, but the symptoms always returned. My body was still communicating: something wasn’t right.

Through meditation, yoga, and consistent embodiment practices, I realized I had been carrying years of unprocessed pain, resentment, and trauma. My mind refused to acknowledge it, but my body never stopped telling the truth. And the moment I began releasing that emotional weight, my chronic illness started to dissolve — and stay gone. I could eat normally again, live normally again. That experience changed me. It taught me that the body always knows before the mind is ready to understand.

Movement, meditation, and journaling slowed me down enough to feel what’s actually happening beneath the surface. Movement reveals the emotions I’ve been suppressing; stillness reveals the ones I’ve been avoiding. Presence brings clarity.

This is why the mission behind the SURRENDER CIRCLE means so much to me — it’s not just a community, it’s a practice of returning people to their bodies. When I’m physically connected to myself, my songwriting becomes clearer, simpler, more truthful. I stop performing. I stop pretending. I stop pushing for the “perfect” line. And what comes through is real.

You ended a four-year relationship this year and described it as a moment of confronting demons and reclaiming your self-worth. How has that personal transformation impacted the kind of music you’re ready to make next?

What mattered most about ending that relationship wasn’t the betrayal — it was recognizing the pattern I had been participating in. I entered that partnership from a lower frequency, as a version of myself who was disconnected, people-pleasing, and afraid to take up space. I felt myself evolving out of that identity, and I realized I couldn’t complete that transformation inside the relationship. I needed to meet myself again — fully, honestly, and on my own.

That shift has completely changed my creative voice. I’m writing from honesty, autonomy, and a reclaimed sense of self-worth, not from the wounded patterns that shaped my earlier work. I’m no longer afraid to be bold. I’m no longer softening my truth or creating from fear of judgment. I’m letting myself sound exactly like me — not like an aesthetic, not like a vibe, not like someone I’m supposed to emulate.

In many ways, I had to sound like something else first in order to understand what “me” actually sounds like. And now, the music I’m making reflects who I really am, not the woman I was surviving as.

Heading into 2026 with your sequel album WILD WOMAN on the horizon, what new emotional territory or creative expression are you stepping into that didn’t exist in your earlier work?

WILD WOMAN is me stepping into parts of myself I used to hide — the sensual parts, the chaotic parts, the intuitive parts, the untamed parts. It’s a return to instinct, desire, and unapologetic self-expression.

Unlike my earlier work, which often processed pain, confusion, or longing, this next era holds:

• confidence instead of self-doubt

• embodiment instead of numbness

• boldness instead of carefulness

• self-acceptance instead of shame

• trust instead of fear 
  

It’s more experimental sonically — louder guitars, heavier drums, darker synths, more primal textures — but it’s also more emotionally liberated.

WILD WOMAN isn’t about who I’ve been surviving as — it’s about who I truly am. A woman who is done apologizing. A woman who listens to her instinct. A wild woman.